


El Blanco el difunto

by TFALokiwriter



Category: Tremors: Shrieker Island (2020), Tremors: The Series
Genre: Foreshadowing, Gen, Heartbreak, Perfection Valley (Tremors), Pre-Canon, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:15:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27137848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TFALokiwriter/pseuds/TFALokiwriter
Summary: One day, El Blanco went outside of his normal routine and Burt sensed something was wrong. Somethingwaswrong.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 5





	El Blanco el difunto

The worm unexpectedly breached in the middle of the day as the general seismographer picked up with a loud wail from the floor level of Chang's Market. Burt flipped off his hammock then looked over spotting El Blanco resting in the middle of the street. He stared on in confusion seeing the creature groan and moan in a way that sounded of Death itself. Burt picked up his elephant gun, slipped on his faded gray uniform, then went down the stairs.

His steps were just as quick as he were when he were younger but more careful and weary with one strap of the elephant gun strapped along his shoulder. He descended down the steps then made a run to the doorway of Chang's Market. He paused, spotting El Blanco, the only full time resident asides to Burt resting in the center of the square lifting the beak up and down, weakly. Burt approached the Graboid.

He held his finger above the trigger as he approached the creature but slowly, but surely, he lowered it. It wasn't making any sounds of the wails that he had heard from a recording by a towns person who had captured it in a different state -- a infestation of Shriekers dealt with -- of the sounds of evolution. This was different. Completely different.

El Blanco retreated under ground with the roar of the ground sighing in relief that the source of the breach had retreated. Burt knelt down then put his ear on the ground and listened. He listened for a few minutes remaining still making not a sound. There was no screeching, no wailing, no growling, or chirping from below. Burt waited for the sound of El Blanco leaving the place but there was none of that. It was all too quiet. Too quiet for the survivalist's taste.

It was sudden just as how the Graboids had entered Burt's life, it was all quick and retreat, as though snarled into the jaw of Death and tangled and mangled and crunched with a sickening sound only there was none. There was just silence in the echo of what had been the wails of Death. Of pain that had erupted from somewhere inside and became much to remain expressing beneath.

"No. No. No. No! No! No!"

Burt froze then returned inside the shop and returned with a couple shovels then proceeded to dig. Burt dug and dug and dug, with breaks in between, until he could hear the sound of a distinctive motorcycle coming in closer. Burt was slightly aware that time had passed as it had grown dark above him replacing the bright blue sky with a LED light beside him on a not very tall mobile table as his guide. Travis came over to the edge looming over his father.

"Hey, Pops, it's the middle of the night--" A shovel hit him. "Ow!"

"Shut up and dig!"

"What for?"

"Just dig!"

Travis picked up the shovel then returned digging by his father's side.

"So, worm ate something that he shouldn't?"

"I don't know, but he hasn't moved from this spot in the last few hours!"

"Hasn't moved?"

"Yep!"

The two men resumed digging until they were six feet below the road on top of a very still worm.

"Uh. . . Pops. ."

"He can't be dead!" Burt dropped his shovel. "He can't be!"

"The facts of the evidence are silently saying otherwise."

"That sorry son of a bitch can't just leave us after saving this town!"

Burt kicked the side of El Blanco.

"Wake up, El Blanco, wake up, wake up!"

Burt paced back and forth, stomping his feet trying to stir the attention of the creature. Burt jumped, hopped, and did what not with his feet as Travis watched quite painfully. Burt, finally, came down to his knees then smacked his fists against the side of the worm's tough hide. The nature of the event was more surreal than Travis could ever give credit for.

"WAKE UP!"

Burt stopped, his forehead pressed against the tough hide, becoming still and making sobbing noise. Travis looked upon his father then sat down alongside him then rested a hand on his shoulder.

"Do you need me to do anything, Pops?"

"Get your HAND off MY SHOULDER."

Travis withdrew his hand.

"Anything else?"

Burt turned toward Travis. 

"Yeah, I do. Call the wildlife conservation society and tell them to put the Graboids as extinct. It's only a lonely picky eater Ass Blaster that is all left."

"What are you going to do?"

Burt was quiet.

"Taxidermy him." Burt said.

"Okay, Pops." Travis said then walked out of the mound.

Burt lowered his head.

"Destiny is a bitch." Burt said. "It's just me, now. . ."

It was quiet. 

"Everyone else has moved out of Perfection."

Burt sighed.

"Mixmaster--it's made living here unbearable for other people."

He tapped on the surface of the tough hide turning away.

"After everything we've been through, they just threw their hands up in the air!" Burt exclaimed with emphasis. "And surrendered to Uncle Sam's past failure and mistake turning a lab into a road and spilling everything into the soil! Cowards! Not sticking around to the very end! Cowards!"

Burt was angry.

"Not like us, El Blanco."

Burt cleared his throat.

"Antiguo Blanco. . . We're one of a kind. You and I."

He thumbed his fingers.

"I knew that from the start."

Burt puckered his lips.

"But not exactly being part of history, I didn't see that coming." Burt had another sigh. "Nor becoming a holiday in Mexico _and_ the United States. Worst decision they ever made!" he grimaced. "Easily encouraged all those idiots to go about and try to make a name for themselves with Graboids."

Burt snorted then opted to change the subject.

"In the last few years, I have seen strange rabbits with antlers in Perfection; actually, packs of them!"

He put his back against the deceased shell's hide, his hands in his lap, looking toward the sky.

"They do shed them, like deer, and I know it's the same rabbits because I put collars on them."

Burt folded his arms, proudly. His smile faded as it were replaced by a sorrowful reminder of what had to be done next.

"Tyler, Roselita, Mindy, Nancy, Jack, Jodi--- they are gonna be so heartbroken to hear you're gone. That you're not coming back to run through town or do your usual running beside the road."

Burt saw only a dark night sky.

"We're both old." Burt admitted. "Time running out. Can't keep hunting, can't keep doing this anymore, doing what we do best." he sighed, emotional, over the matter. "You said good-bye out of pain then went back into the woods that was your hunting grounds a-a-a-a-and --" his voice began to break. "--just slipped away from there."

Burt was quiet.

"Most elderly people don't have that kind of luck like you do."

Silence.

"I envy you, Antiguo Blanco."

A small but very wet rabbit with small antlers came running out of El Blanco then climbed up the mound and made a mad dash away from the town.

"Oh God, El Blanco, you are disgusting! Not even dissolving your FOOD before DYING? You are one insane gross worm."

Burt shook his hand, disgusting, incing then sighed.

"I am gonna miss you, fellow survivalist." Burt shifted toward El Blanco. "No, I miss you."

Burt lowered his head with a sigh;

"Wherever you are --Worm Heaven? -- . . . I hope you're meeting your fellow worms and communicating with them for the first time in God knows how long. Must be a very sweet reunion down where you are." Burt rubbed the tough hide then began to grin as he patted on it then smirked with a slight laugh. "Or being the annoying but reliable Ass Blaster that anyone could count on getting to fly in the sky."

Burt closed his eyes.

"This place is going to change very quickly from the 19th century into the 21st century and I am not sure that I can take that." Burt confessed.

Burt began to cry as his voice cracked.

"Perfection Valley isn't gonna be the same without you." Burt finished.

Burt turned away then wiped a tear off and looked up toward the sound of open crying coming from Travis.

"That was the best Eulogy that I ever heard for a _worm_." Travis sobbed.

"How did you get that done so fast?" Burt asked with a glare. 

"My hands are real mean when it comes to texting, Pops." Travis held his hand up with a grin.

Burt got up to his feet then took Travis's held hand and climbed up.

"I have to make some calls." Burt said. "Watch out for greedy, mean, arrogant people and don't even close your eyes for a second!"

"I won't." Travis assured as he handed Burt the phone. 

Burt walked away with the phone in hand, sliding his finger through, searching for the phone number while returning into Chang's Market quite reluctantly and slowly. Burt paused in the center of Chang's Market, the door slightly ajar, shifting toward the mound. He stood there for a few moments, looking back at the long history with the creature working with it against the mixmaster creatures that plagued around the Valley and places in America. 

"Damn worm, why did you have to dig into my heart and leave a open grave behind?" Burt asked, heartbroken.

**Author's Note:**

> antiguo=old (masculine)
> 
> El Blanco el difunto=the white one the deceased


End file.
